


Like Old Times

by dip_the_pip



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, how the #blueblack hairdye box got into their flat, quarantine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24281842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_the_pip/pseuds/dip_the_pip
Summary: How did hair dye end up in their grocery order?
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 77





	Like Old Times

Sunlight shines through the open windows, the sound of London mixing with the soft music playing through the speakers throughout the flat. Phil was putting away laundry, but instead of just connecting to the bedroom speaker, he always felt the need to play his music through all the speakers. Dan doesn’t mind though, mumbling along softly to the song as he unpacks their grocery delivery.

Even before lockdown, they’d get their groceries delivered, but with so many people using those services now, mix-ups happened more often. Neither of them mind or throw a fuss when something in their order is wrong, because who would that benefit? If anything, it was more exciting getting their groceries now. Sure, Phil’s instituted a rule that Dan has to unpack the groceries alone with a mask and gloves and wipe down every box and bag and then sanitize the entire kitchen, but he was happy to do it if it brought Phil some peace of mind.

He’s finally gotten to the last delivery box when he sees something that catches his eye. He grabs the little box and turns it over in his gloved hands, snorting quietly to himself as he wipes down the box with a sanitizer wipe. He sets it on the island with the collection of other bathroom supplies that were delivered and finishes up unpacking their food.

-

Dan’s lounging on the couch and scrolling on his phone when Phil finally comes back out after knowing the groceries were put away and everything was clean. “Did we get anything exciting?” Phil asks before ducking into the kitchen to have a look around the cupboards.

“Mmh, yeah,” Dan mumbles loud enough for him to hear as he tries to balance his focus on what he’s reading and what Phil’s talking about, “Different crisps, and a random bag of carrots,”

Out the corner of his eye, he can vaguely see Phil’s head pop out from the kitchen, “That’s all?”

Dan can’t help the grin that grows across his face, “Oh, did you want me to pretend that the hair dye was a mistake?”

“What hair dye?” Phil asks, playing dumb in a tone that Dan’s all too familiar with. Usually Phil only brings it out to try and save his own ass when he knows he’s lying. ‘What box of cookies?’, ‘What bag of crisps?’, ‘What green tea KitKat’s from Japan?’, ‘What neatly tied bow on your sweater that I definitely didn’t untie when you kissed me?’.

“You think you’re so smooth, Lester. I thought maybe it was a mistake,” Dan clicks his phone into sleep mode and grabs his laptop off the coffee table, turning the screen in Phil’s direction and showing their grocery order, with “L’OREAL CLRSTA #BLEBLK” across the bottom of the order with a sample photo of the box as a display picture.

“You must’ve added it,” Phil shrugs.

“I can see when the cart was last updated, dumbass,”

“No proof,”

Dan smirks, and turns the screen back to himself, clicking a few times before showing him the screen again, “I picked out the groceries on Tuesday afternoon, and placed the order Wednesday morning just in case we had forgotten anything. The hair dye was added at 1:43am on Wednesday morning, long after I had gone to sleep. So, Lester,” He grins wide as he watches Phil try to repress his giggles, “Are you gonna claim the hair dye now?”

“If I say yes, will you help me dye it?”

“For a video?”

Phil shakes his head, “Doesn’t have to be,”

Dan chews his lip, glancing at the hair dye box on his screen and back over to Phil, “They’d lose their shits if you said nothing,”

“I’ll figure something out,” Phil says with a small smile, “Like, what if I film myself doing the first bit, and then cut and let you finish it?”

“At that point wouldn’t it just be easier to do it all yourself?”

Phil shakes his head, “Doesn’t matter what’s easiest or makes the most sense. I just wanna spend time with you,”

“You fucking sap,” Dan rolls his eyes as his cheeks flush. It does feel nice that even after all this time, Phil still actively wants Dan around. Dan’s glad they never settled into a static relationship, and that they never seemed to lose their spark. Sure, the romance fizzles from time to time, and maybe they’ll go a few weeks without sex without even really noticing because they’d be so busy, but they still choose each other. They’ve always chosen each other.

-

“Ready,” Phil calls from the bathroom. Dan climbs off the bed and makes his way into the bathroom, seeing Phil reach up and turn the camera off. He pulls on a clean pair of gloves from a box of gloves they had bought years ago when Dan still dyed Phil’s hair, before they got their own hairdresser.

It’s soothing to dye Phil’s hair for him, and by the way Phil’s eyes fall shut, it must be relaxing for him, too. They settle into a comfortable quietness, an instrumental playlist playing in that background that Dan had turned on before getting to work on Phil’s hair.

Even when all the dye was it, he kept at rubbing Phil’s scalp, listening to the quiet hums from his partner. He notices Phil’s shoulders drop, and untense for the first time in weeks. The crease in his brow lessens up as he leans back into Dan’s touch, and if Phil wasn’t still holding his head up straight, he would’ve assumed he had fallen asleep.

Nights were hard these days, with all the uncertainty around the world and their lives. It didn’t help that Phil was a bit of a hypochondriac, either. Not that Dan blames Phil for being a little paranoid every day, even when they don’t leave the house or get any groceries or takeaway. It was a scary time, even Dan gets a little panicked when he feels a headache coming on or he coughs just a bit too much.

Phil was mostly worried for his parents. He was a Mumma’s boy through and through, and not being able to be with his Mum and Dad at a time like this was difficult. Video calls with the Lester’s, Martyn and Cornelia included, became a lot more frequent. Sunday nights, they’d all call and eat dinner together, Tuesday nights Phil would figure out a way for them all to play different board games and card games, and Thursday mornings Phil and Martyn would hop on a call with Kath as she tries to explain all her different baking and cooking recipes to them. From what Dan’s heard on the calls from his seat in the living room, Cornelia usually ends up taking over for Martyn, and Phil ends up giving up and leaning against the counter eating the ingredients as he chats about the show that he and Kath are watching.

Dan didn’t feel the need to reach out, like Phil did. It was usual for him and his family to go lengths of time without chatting or catching up, so when his mum and nan started calling him every other day, it became a little overwhelming pretty fast. Thankfully, they were understanding when Dan explained that even though a lot of people have this new free time on their hands, he’s still working. He did have to agreed to schedule them in for a FaceTime call on Saturday’s, which he’s mostly stuck to.

He knows Phil’s going to bitch about him getting the dye all over his scalp and the back of his neck, but Dan couldn’t bring himself to care. It wasn’t often that he took the time to focus on Phil like this, at least not without Phil jokingly calling him a creep. Dan like’s his hands on Phil, though. He likes running his fingers through his hair and scratching his nails down Phil’s back and just taking the time to admire and love the man he gets to call his. They were both like that in the beginning, unable to keep their hands off each other, not even in a sexual way. They always wanted to be touch, holding, anything to remind each other that for the first time, they weren’t alone in the world.

Eventually he does let the dye just sit in Phil’s hair, and then he helps him lean over the edge of the tub to rinse it out.

“How does it look?” Phil asks as he towel dries his hair with an old towel that they had always kept specifically for when Phil dyed his hair.

“Weird,” Dan says with a small shrug. He watches Phil’s reflection as his partner furrows his brows.

“A bad weird?”

Dan shakes his head, uncrossing his arms and pushing himself off the wall he’s leaning against as he walks up behind Phil. He places his hands softly on Phil’s waist as leans down to press a kiss to his shoulder. “Definitely not bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have said weird. Just, different,”

“Is it really that different if I was dyeing it basically the same colour for over a decade?”

Dan shrugs again, and wraps his arms around Phil now, holding him close against him and propping his chin on his shoulder, “I guess not, but it’s been a while since you’ve done it. Wouldn’t I look a little weird if I started straightening my hair every day again?”

Phil’s eyes widen comically, “Yeah. Okay, I see where you’re coming from, I guess. Please don’t go back to straightening it, though,”

Dan turns his face into Phil’s neck and laughs, hugging him tighter, “You’re stuck with a hobbit-looking bastard for life, sorry,”

“Fine by me,” Phil grins into the mirror, catching Dan’s eyes in the reflection.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr @dip-the-pip :D
> 
> [here](Https://dip-the-pip.tumblr.com/post/618602821044011008/like-old-times) to reblog the fic!


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